Dynamic output feedback control for UAVs with limited network bandwidth: A GA-assisted design approach

Abstract

This paper studies the dynamic output feedback (OF) control problem for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with limited network bandwidth by a genetic-algorithm-assisted design approach. In order to make full use of the limited network bandwidth, only partial measurement information is transmitted to the controller via the sensor-to-controller network. Round-Robin protocol is introduced to administrate the transmission rule. Sufficient conditions are presented to make sure that the closed-loop UAV system is exponentially stable with the required L2-gain performance. However, due to the nonlinear coupling terms of the dynamic OF controller parameters and some redundant variables in the system modeling, the established conditions are non-convex and difficult to be solved. Fortunately, genetic algorithms (GA) show good performance in solving optimization problem with nonlinear and non-convex constraints. Therefore, this paper skillfully combines GA with linear matrix inequality techniques to solve the established conditions. Finally, all the dynamic OF controller parameters and the minimal L2-gain can be obtained simultaneously. At the end of this paper, an UAV networked control example and a numerical example are performed to verify the effectiveness and superiorities of our method.